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Rebecca Rubin is the tenth Historical Character of the American Girls, representing early twentieth-century America during the second wave of European immigration. Rebecca was released in 2009 and is part of the BeForever collection.

Contents

Personality

Rebecca is nicknamed "Beckie" by her family. Her mother and grandparents immigrated from Russia. Rebecca's family is Jewish and maintains their heritage. She wants to be an actress like her cousin Max when she grows up. Her family does not approve of her following in Max's footsteps, and they want Rebecca to be a teacher; however, she refuses to take their advice. She wants to appear more grown up than she is, despite the mocking from her older sisters. She is thoughtful and generous. Rebecca often accompanies her father to help work at his shoe store. She likes to crochet and is very good at it. She also has shone to have a knack with business and making money, as shown in Meet Rebecca, similar to her father. Due to the fact that Rebecca gets hand-me-downs from her twin sisters, she has two sets of almost all her outfits. She shares them with her cousin Ana.

Rebecca loves to be the center of attention or "in the spotlight," often being a little envious of her siblings for getting more attention than she does. In Meet Rebecca she wanted to be the one to light the Sabbath candles instead of her sisters who always received praised for looking and acting grown-up. In Rebecca to the Rescue, she was envious because her brother was getting lots of attention leading up to his Bar Mitzvah. Rebecca also loves to make people laugh. She is described as being lively with a dramatic flair.

Rebecca can be a little bossy, especially when she's directing plays, and tends to want things to go her way, which was highlighted in Changes for Rebecca and My Journey with Rebecca.

Rebecca likes coming together for Sabbath dinner but is upset that she cannot light the Sabbath candles. Her favorite subject in school is arithmetic, and her grandpa calls her a "math whiz." Her favorite book is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She would rather spend her time in the splashing waves at Coney Island.

Rebecca struggles with trying to fit in to American culture and balance her own religion and cultural beliefs as well. This was most evident in Candlelight for Rebecca—she knew that her family didn't celebrate Christmas, but pressure from others about celebrating the holiday made her feel out of place. Rebecca wants to be liked and praised and dislikes to be talked about negatively. In Rebecca and Ana, Rebecca was embarrassed by her cousin Ana after her classmates at school teased her. Rebecca has shown herself to be courageous and have natural talent.

Rebecca's family speaks fluent Yiddish; while the books are written in English, Yiddish words are integrated into the stories and defined in the back of each book.

American Girl characterizes her as "confident" and "inspiring" while the American Girl shop section describes her as charismatic.

Trivia

See also

References and Footnotes

↑In Rebecca and the Movies, Rebecca and Rose are out on a Saturday afternoon during Passover. Rebecca says her birthday is the next day--Sunday. Passover was from Tuesday, March 30 to Tuesday, April 6th by the Gregorian calendar in 1915. The only Sunday in that time frame is the 4th of April.